When I returned home, the broth before me looked thin beside the senator's table in which I was accustomed to plenty.
François ate noisily, and I kept my silence, shimmering inside with rage.
I went to bed early. Ten hours later I rose less angry, but no less resolved to see my godfather dragged before the courts.
I had just buttoned my coat when a polite knock interrupted my plans.
The man who entered carried a leather case and had an easy smile on his face.
He was a skillful hairdresser whom I knew from Madame Cantarini's house.
"Signor Casanova," he said with a bow, "Monsieur de Malipiero requests your company at dinner. And,"—he lifted the cap from my head—"your hair, naturally, cannot go as it is."
He examined the damage "Bad," he murmured, "but if you would trust to my art, I would undertake to send you out with an appearance of even greater elegance than you could boast of before."
I sat. He worked in silence, oils and irons moving with precision.
When he turned the mirror toward me, I hardly knew the face reflected.
I found myself so good-looking that I considered my thirst for revenge entirely satisfied.
I called upon the lawyer to tell him to stay all proceedings, and I hastened to M. de Malipiero's palace.
There, at the senator's table, fortune added its last irony: the abbe himself was there.
I cast upon him quite the unfriendly looks, offered no word, and took my seat.
The senator saw everything; the priest said nothing.
He left soon after, most likely with feelings of mortified repentance, for this time I most verily deserved excommunication by the extreme studied elegance of my curling hair.
When my cruel godfather had gone, I told the senator plainly I would never again serve under a man who wielded scissors as instruments of discipline.
Malipiero nodded gravely, the corners of his mouth already betraying amusement.
"You are quite right," he said.
He agreed with me in everything, it was the best way to make me do ultimately whatever he liked.
That evening, my newly contrived curls were the subject of universal praise.
The ladies pronounced them angelic; the gentlemen insisted I had never appeared more ecclesiastical.
I was delighted—and even more gratified—when a fortnight passed without the senator hinting at my return to my godfather's church.
My grandmother alone constantly urged me to return.
But this calm was the harbinger of a storm.
One afternoon, while I basked in this fragile peace, the senator launched his next stratagem.
"Giacomo," he began, smoothing a spot from his sleeve, "an excellent opportunity offered itself for you to reappear in the church and to secure ample satisfaction from the abbe."
"It is my province," added the senator, "as president of the Confraternity of the Holy Sacrament, to choose the preacher who is to deliver the sermon on the fourth Sunday of this month, which happens to be the second Christmas holiday. I mean to appoint you, and I am certain that the abbe will not dare to reject my choice. What say you to such a triumphant reappearance? Does it satisfy you?"
I nearly laughed. "To preach? you must surely be enjoying a joke at my expense."
He shook his head, "Not at all, I am speaking in earnest."
He then contrived to persuade me and to make me believe that I was born to become the most renowned preacher of our century as soon as I should have grown fat—a quality which I certainly could not boast of, for at that time I was extremely thin.
I had not the shadow of a fear as to my voice or to my elocution, and for the matter of composing my sermon I felt myself equal to the production of a masterpiece.
The next morning the senator informed me that the abbé "rejoiced" at the choice but required my sermon beforehand, lest I pollute his pulpit with heresy. I agreed.
During the week I gave birth to my masterpiece.
I have now that first sermon in my possession, and I cannot help saying that, considering my tender years, I think it a very good one.
I could not give an idea of my grandmother's joy; she wept tears of happiness at having a grandson who had become an apostle.
She insisted upon my reading my sermon to her, listened to it with her beads in her hands, and pronounced it very beautiful.
de Malipiero, who had no rosary when I read it to him, listened more cooly.
"Elegant," he said, "though the parson may raise an eyebrow at your text."
"What fault can he find with Horace?" I asked.
"Only that the man was a pagan—and probably proud of it still."
He approved, however, of my restraint in leaving Latin quotations out.
I waited for the abbé in his study, my sermon in hand. His niece, Angela, sat by the window, her needle glinting through a patch of lace.
When she looked up, I forgot both my text and my theology.
She made room at her side and, with disarming candor, asked me to recount the tale of the curls her venerable uncle had sacrificed. I obliged.
My love for Angela would prove fatal, for it sowed the seeds of two other love affairs, which in turn birthed many more—and eventually drove me from the Church as a profession. But let us proceed quietly, and not encroach upon future events.
When the abbé returned, he found me beside his niece, and he did not appear to be angry.
I handed him the manuscript. He read in silence, then said:
"A fine essay. For the Academy."
"You mean it's not fit for a sermon?"
"It is not. You will preach one of mine. The people may think it yours—I shall not correct them."
"With respect, Father," I said, "I will preach my own words or none."
"Then not in my church."
"Then I'll bring it to the Patriarch. If he approves it, I'll speak it; if not, I'll have it printed. One way or another, it shall be heard."
He smiled thinly. "Take it where you like. The Patriarch will side with me."
That evening, at Malipiero's table, at the request of the company, I read the sermon aloud.
The ladies found it charming; the men, original. A niece of the Patriarch even promised to whisper in her uncle's ear.
The senator only laughed and told me to wait before declaring war.
The next morning, he summoned us both.
The abbé entered already armed with arguments—on pride, impropriety, and the damnable Horace.
I let him speak until he gasped for breath, then said quietly, "Let the Patriarch decide. If he condemns it, I yield; if he approves, your conscience is safe."
He hesitated, then sighed. "Very well. Preach it—only change the text. Horace was a villain."
"Worse than Seneca or Origen?" I asked. "They were all heretics, and must, consequently, be considered by you as worse wretches than Horace, who, after all, never had the chance of becoming a Solarian!"
"That is different," he said weakly.
Malipiero laughed; the priest did not.
In the end, as I saw it would please M. de Malipiero, I accepted his substitute verse — a tame one, fit for the pulpit — and left my manuscript behind, promising to call for it tomorrow.
It gave me an excuse to see Angela again.
That night, my vanity prompted me to send a copy to Doctor Gozzi. His reply was brief:
You must have gone mad, and if you were allowed to deliver such a sermon from the pulpit, you would bring dishonour upon yourself as well as upon the man who had educated you.
I cared but little for his opinion, and on the appointed day I delivered my sermon in the Church of the Holy Sacrament in the presence of the best society of Venicia.
I received much applause, and every one predicted that I would certainly become the first preacher of our century, as no young ecclesiastic of fifteen had ever been known to preach as well as I had done.
The sexton passed the offering purse; when he emptied it later, it held more than fifty sequins, and several billets-doux, to the great scandal of the weaker brethren.
An anonymous note amongst them, the writer of which I thought I had guessed, let me into a mistake which I think better not to relate.
However overall, the praise was intoxicating. To a penniless seminarian, gold felt holier than incense.
I began to seriously consider becoming a preacher. The abbe encouraged the thought.
This gave me the privilege of visiting at his house every day, and I improved the opportunity of conversing with Angela, for whom my love was daily increasing.
But Angela was virtuous.
She did not object to my love, but she wished me to renounce the Church and to marry her.
Despite my infatuation, I could not resolve upon so decisive a step. I continued seeing her, hoping she might relent.
The priest, who had at last confessed his admiration for my first sermon, asked me for another— this time for Saint Joseph's Day with an invitation to deliver it on the 19th of March, 1741.
I accepted, flattered and certain of success.
The text came easily. I composed it in a fever of confidence.
The abbé spoke of it with enthusiasm.
But fate had decreed that I should preach only once in my life.
It is a sad tale, unfortunately for me very true, which some persons are cruel enough to consider very amusing.
Young and conceited, I believed it unnecessary to commit every word to memory. I knew the ideas; I could always replace forgotten phrases with equal ones.
Speaking in society had never confused me; I expected no difficulty before an audience of strangers.
So I lived as usual, reading my sermon morning and night. My memory had never betrayed me.
The 19th of March came, and on that eventful day at four o'clock in the afternoon I was to ascend the pulpit.
Believing myself quite secure and thoroughly master of my subject, I had not the moral courage to deny myself the pleasure of dining with Count Mont-Real.
He was then residing with me, and had invited the patrician Barozzi, engaged to be married to his daughter after the Easter holidays.
When the sexton burst in to fetch me, I left my glass half full and hurried to the church, flushed and confident.
The exordium flowed perfectly. The audience leaned forward.
I took a breath, began the next paragraph—and my mind went blank.
Completely.
The next sentence refused to appear. I tried to invent another. It wandered off mid-thought, and I was at a loss.
I forgot my original point.
A murmur spread through the church. Someone coughed. Another smiled. I felt heat rise to my scalp where my hair had not yet grown back.
I attempted a recovery — and failed magnificently.
The silence became unbearable.
Few people left the church.
At that point, I remember the pulpit spinning, faces blurring into halos.
Whether I truly fainted or merely fled by collapsing, I will never know.
The wall struck my head; oblivion followed.
When I awoke in the vestry, two clerks were holding me upright, whispering prayers for my soul or my dignity.
I left without a word.
At home, I stripped off my clerical gown, packed a trunk, and asked my grandmother for money.
She gave it in silence; her eyes said the rest.
That night, I took the road to Padua.
By midnight I was at Doctor Gozzi's door. He welcomed me kindly, asked no questions.
I did not feel the slightest temptation to mention to him my unlucky adventure.